Default options for CPAN::Reporter are read from a configuration file .cpanreporter/config.ini in the user's home directory. (On Win32 platforms, the directory will be located in the user's "Documents" directory.) The location of the configuration directory or file may be specified using environment variables instead.

The configuration file is in "ini" format, with the option name and value separated by an "=" sign

email_from = "John Doe" <johndoe@nowhere.org>
edit_report = no

Interactive configuration of email address and common action prompts may be repeated at any time from the CPAN shell.

cpan> o conf init test_report

If a configuration file does not exist, it will be created the first time interactive configuration is performed.

Subsequent interactive configuration will also include any advanced options that have been added manually to the configuration file.

id_file -- path to the user's Metabase profile file. Defaults to metabase_id.json. (Assumed to be in the .cpanreporter directory).

Prior to sending reports, a user must have a valid profile file at the path specified. For Metabase transport, CPAN::Reporter will automatically rewrite a relative id_file path as an absolute path located in the .cpanreporter directory.

If the specified profile file does not exist, CPAN::Reporter will offer to run metabase-profile to create it.

For other transport types, see the documentation that comes with your choice of Test::Reporter::Transport subclass for the proper way to set the transport configuration option.

Several steps in the generation of a test report are optional. Configuration options control whether an action should be taken automatically or whether CPAN::Reporter should prompt the user for the action to take. The action to take may be different for each report grade. For example, users may wish to customize for which grades they wish to manually review a report before sending it.

Most users should just accept the default settings until they have some experience as CPAN Testers.

Valid actions, and their associated meaning, are as follows:

yes -- automatic yes

no -- automatic no

ask/no or just ask -- ask each time, but default to no

ask/yes -- ask each time, but default to yes

For "ask" prompts, the default will be used if return is pressed immediately at the prompt or if the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment variable is set to a true value.

Action prompt options take one or more space-separated "grade:action" pairs, which are processed left to right.

edit_report = fail:ask/yes pass:no

An action by itself is taken as a default to be used for any grade which does not have a grade-specific action. A default action may also be set by using the word "default" in place of a grade.

edit_report = ask/no
edit_report = default:ask/no

A grade by itself is taken to have the action "yes" for that grade.

edit_report = default:no fail

Multiple grades may be specified together by separating them with a slash.

These additional options are only necessary in special cases, for example if the default editor cannot be found or if reports shouldn't be sent in certain situations or for automated testing, and so on.

command_timeout -- if greater than zero and the CPAN config is inactivity_timeout is not set, then any commands executed by CPAN::Reporter will be halted after this many seconds; useful for unattended smoke testing to stop after some amount of time; generally, this should be large -- 900 seconds or more -- as some distributions' tests take quite a long time to run. On MSWin32, Win32::Job is a needed and trying to kill a process may actually deadlock in some situations -- so use at your own risk.

editor = <editor> -- editor to use to edit the test report; if not set, Test::Reporter will use environment variables VISUAL, EDITOR or EDIT (in that order) to find an editor

retry_submission -- if greater than zero, CPAN::Reporter will try to resend the report after a few seconds in case the first attempt fails.

send_PL_report = <grade:action> ... -- if defined, used in place of send_report during the PL phase

send_make_report = <grade:action> ... -- if defined, used in place of send_report during the make phase

send_test_report = <grade:action> ... -- if defined, used in place of send_report during the test phase

send_skipfile = <skipfile> -- filename containing regular expressions (one per line) to match against the distribution ID (e.g. 'AUTHOR/Dist-Name-0.01.tar.gz'); the report will not be sent if a match is found; non-absolute filename must be in the .cpanreporter config directory;

If these options are manually added to the configuration file, they will be included (and preserved) in subsequent interactive configuration.

The following environment variables may be set to alter the default locations for CPAN::Reporter files:

PERL_CPAN_REPORTER_DIR -- if set, this directory is used in place of the default .cpanreporter directory; this will affect not only the location of the default config.ini, but also the location of the CPAN::Reporter::History database and any other files that live in that directory

PERL_CPAN_REPORTER_CONFIG -- if set, this file is used in place of the default config.ini file; it may be in any directory, regardless of the choice of configuration directory